Saturday, January 20, 2007

I'm on a fact-/quote-checking tear today ... When I mentioned a quote about 'surging civilians' recently, Ben Zimmer noted in a comment that to surge is getting established now as a transitive verb, though he hadn't heard this extension. I just tracked it down. On the News Hour, former Capt. Philip Carter, U.S. Army, said:

We have to, as Secretary Rice has rightly said, surge civilians from the State Department, and the Justice Department, and the Agricultural Department into Iraq to help the government stand up and start serving the people.

Gee, haven't that heard much about actually doing what Rice suggested, though.